(NEW YORK) — Country music superstar Shania Twain is sharing new details about the health battle she says she faced due to Lyme disease.
Twain, 56, said she thought she had lost the ability to sing after a tick bite she got while horseback riding in 2003 led to Lyme disease, a tick-borne infectious disease that, if left untreated, can affect the joints, heart and nervous system, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“My voice was never the same again,” Twain said in a new documentary about her life, Not Just a Girl. “I thought I’d lost my voice forever. I thought that was it, [and] I would never, ever sing again.”
Twain was in the height of her career when she was diagnosed with Lyme disease. She says in the documentary the condition affected her ability to perform.
“My symptoms were quite scary because before I was diagnosed, I was on stage very dizzy. I was losing my balance. I was afraid I was going to fall off the stage,” she said. “I was having these very, very, very millisecond blackouts, but regularly, every minute or every 30 seconds.”
In a 2020 appearance on ABC’s The View, Twain said it took “several years” for doctors to connect the problems with her voice to her Lyme disease diagnosis.
She said the disease caused damage to her vocal cords in the three weeks between when she was bitten by a tick and when she started treatment for the infection.
“There were seven years where I could not, for example, yell out for my dog. My voice would just cut out in certain places,” said Twain. “And it took another several years to determine what it was. It wasn’t anything obvious. Nobody connected the Lyme disease to it. In the end, a neurologist finally connected that it was the nerve to each vocal cord.”
Twain said that although her voice was permanently impacted, she feels grateful the disease didn’t attack another part of her body, like her heart.
“It was just a very unfortunate, ironic problem since I’m a singer, but I feel so grateful and so lucky that it didn’t attack somewhere else because it’s so debilitating,” she said, adding that she now has a “grip” on the disease. “I have a different voice now but I own it. I love my voice now.”
What to know about Lyme disease
Lyme disease, the most common vector-borne disease in the U.S., according to the CDC, has impacted other celebrities including Amy Schumer and Justin Bieber.
The illness, caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, is transmitted to humans via tick bites and is more likely to be contracted in the late spring, summer and fall. In most cases, the tick must be attached to the skin for at least 36 hours before the bacterium can be transmitted.
Symptoms generally appear after one week, with approximately 70% to 80% of people experiencing a classic “bull’s eye” rash which expands in size at the site of the bite.
Symptoms in the acute phase include fever, headache and fatigue. If left untreated, the infection can spread to joints, the heart and the nervous system. People also may experience lingering symptoms that last months or even years, such as muscle and joint pain, cognitive defects and sleep disturbances, according to the CDC.
Once confirmed with laboratory testing, most cases can be treated for a few weeks with antibiotics. According to the Mayo Clinic, Lyme disease should be treated immediately and may require intravenous antibiotics if the case is severe.
Lyme disease is most commonly found in the Northeast and upper Midwest, with 96% of all cases in 14 states — Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin, according to the CDC.
The CDC recommends preventive measures to avoid ticks including avoiding “wooded and brushy areas with high grass and leaf litter,” and walking in the center of trails.
When hiking or in wooded areas, you can also treat your clothes and gear with products containing 0.5% permethrin, according to the CDC. They also recommend always doing a “tick check” after being outside and wearing insect repellent with Deet.
Ticks can also come into the home through clothing and pets, so the CDC recommends checking pets for ticks and tumble drying clothes on high heat for 10 minutes after coming indoors to kill ticks.
If you are ever in a situation where you are bitten by a tick, the Cleveland Clinic recommends tugging gently but firmly near the head of the tick until it releases its hold on the skin.
People who are outdoors in areas that may have ticks should also conduct a full body check when they return, including checking under the arms, in and around the ears, inside the belly button, behind the knees, in and around the hair, between the legs and around the waist, the CDC recommends.
John Smith, M.D., a psychiatrist and contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit, contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — The future of COVID-19 vaccines might not be shots in the arm or leg. Instead, picture a nasal spray or a patch stuck onto the skin for a few minutes.
A group of scientists, doctors and administration health officials gathered at the White House on Tuesday to discuss the next generation of inoculation against COVID and its viral cousins; they were in agreement that there is room for improvement.
The future could include vaccines that protect equally against all variants — or even vaccines that stop infections from happening in the first place.
“Innovative approaches are clearly needed to induce broad and durable protection against coronaviruses known and unknown,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House’s chief medical adviser, told the audience.
There’s broad consensus that despite the benefit of the currently available vaccines, the “job is not done,” Fauci said.
“We’ve already averted well over 2 million deaths, approximately $1 trillion in health care costs and tens and tens of millions of infections, as well as close to 20 million hospitalizations. That’s the good news,” Fauci said. “What’s the sobering news? Sobering news is why we’re here today — because our job is not done.”
There are a few options on the table.
One is a pan-coronavirus vaccine, which could cover a broad array of future COVID variants and perhaps other coronaviruses, giving people protection for longer periods of time.
Another is a vaccine that people would spray into their noses, called a mucosal vaccine, or even a small patch that would be applied to the skin and carry the vaccine in microneedles.
All are promising innovations, with the potential to be combined with one another — but all are in very early stages of development.
The “holy grail,” Fauci said, is “not only to protect against disease, but to protect against acquisition, and by acquisition, transmission.”
Sprays and patches
Dr. Akiko Iwasaki, an expert on nasal vaccines from Yale University who spoke at the summit, said the only way to fully achieve that goal — Fauci’s “holy grail” — would be nasal vaccines.
She compared them to “stopping the virus from spreading right at the border,” because the virus enters through the nose.
“This is akin to putting a guard outside of the house in order to patrol for invaders, compared to putting the guards in the hallway of a building in the hope they would capture the invader,” Iwasaki said, contrasting the nasal vaccines to the current shots, which are injected and produce an antibody response throughout the body.
Mark Prausnitz, the chief scientific officer of Micron Biomedical, which is developing a vaccine administered through a skin patch, also pitched it as a better option to the current generation of vaccines.
“Leave it in place for a few minutes, peel it off and discard it. We think this can not only make vaccines more readily accessible, but improve immunogenicity,” Prausnitz said.
He said the microneedles in the patch are as long as a piece of paper is thick, and people barely feel them. The patches could be administered by people at home, he said, and wouldn’t require inaccessible cold storage.
A summit for ideas, but also a pitch to Congress
For both the new types of vaccines on the horizon, there are still huge scientific hurdles to developing such new innovations. And without significant resources, that could take upwards of three to five years, experts estimate.
So while Tuesday’s summit was a display of potential new advancements and an acknowledgement of where the current vaccines are falling behind, it was also in a pitch to lawmakers for substantial focus and investment.
“It’s very important to note that we need to move quickly to start testing these nasal vaccines in humans, and that requires a significant U.S. government input, both resources and help with manufacturing and delivery as well as acceptance across society,” Iwasaki told the audience.
Marty Moore, founder and chief scientific officer of another nasal vaccine company, Meissa Vaccines, said the benefits would significantly outweigh the risks.
“I think developing transmission-blocking vaccines, of course, will come with great challenges and some cost,” he said. “But I think the probability of success warrants this investment based on what we know about vaccines. And the potential benefits are just enormous, direct and indirect.”
White House COVID coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha has said he’s hopeful the timeline for these new vaccines could be drastically reduced — if investments are made.
But the Biden administration has faced reluctance from congressional Republicans to approve even more funding, with conservatives citing questions and objections over how past monies were spent.
(NEW YORK) — A tampon shortage in the U.S. this summer has put a spotlight on menstrual product alternatives.
Over the past several weeks, major retail chains across the country have reported a shortage of tampon products. Across social media, users have posted about their struggles finding products on store shelves.
The shortage reportedly stems from a combination of factors, including staffing problems at factories, transportation delays and the rising cost of materials like plastics that are used to make the products.
Amid the ongoing shortage, the average price for tampons and other menstrual products has also risen.
The price of tampons rose by nearly 10% and the price of menstrual pads by more than 8% through May, according to a June Bloomberg report, which cited data from measurement and analytics company NielsenIQ.
The good news for people who menstruate and prefer to use tampons is that there are still alternatives to be found.
Dr. Jessica Shepherd, a board-certified OB-GYN, spoke with ABC News’ Good Morning America about the pros and cons of those common tampon alternatives.
Alternative #1: Menstrual pads
Pads are the most well-known alternative to tampons and the most easily accessible, according to Shepherd.
“Pads really are the forefront of menstrual hygiene products,” she said. “They were the first that were developed.”
Menstrual pads include both one-time-use disposable pads as well as cloth pads, which Shepherd described as a more eco-friendly alternative.
“As far as waste is concerned, reusable cloth pads are a great alternative,” she said. “You’re going to able to wash them and they give you about four to eight hours of protection.”
Shepherd noted that reusable cloth pads can range in price from $10 to $40, but because they are washable and reusable, they can last longer than other options.
Both reusable and disposable pads, while uncomfortable to wear for some people, are also available for the different levels of bleeding a person may experience throughout their menstrual cycle.
“Pads really kind of create an atmosphere and an environment for people to have easy access to something that really has [been] designed to cater to the duration and flow of every individual,” said Shepherd.
Alternative #2: Menstrual cups and discs
Menstrual cups and menstrual discs are both objects that are inserted into the vagina to absorb period blood, according to Shepherd.
Menstrual cups, which are cup-shaped and reusable, are folded and inserted into the vagina, where they sit below the cervix. The cups have a suction seal to prevent leakage, according to Shepherd.
Menstrual discs are disc-shaped and are also folded and inserted in the vagina, sitting below the cervix. They do not suction though, according to Shepherd.
“It just sits in the vaginal canal rather than having a suction portion, allowing it to be to the actual cervix,” she said.
Both options are inserted at home, not at a doctor’s office, and offer up to 12 hours of protection, according to Shepherd.
While menstrual cups and discs are more expensive than disposable tampons, for example, they are longer lasting, Shepherd noted.
“There is cost involved but you have to remember that cost, when you look over the long range of time, usually ends up being a little bit cheaper or less expensive than using things that are disposable such as your tampons and your pads,” she said.
Alternative #3: Period panties
The most recent addition to the menstrual hygiene product options is period panties, which are underwear that have built-in absorption to prevent leakage.
Shepherd said she recommends period panties for people who have lighter periods, or for someone who is at the beginning of their menstrual cycle, when bleeding is lighter.
She said she also recommends them for adolescents who typically have lighter periods in general, for athletes who need the ability to move and for people who do not like the feel of other options like pads or tampons.
“Those are great for your light days or if you want to kind of double up,” she said, adding, “For someone who does have a heavier cycle, wearing a period panty or period underwear usually needs to be done in conjunction with something else, which is a pad or menstrual disc.”
Period panties can be worn for up to 12 hours and are reusable, according to Shepherd.
While period panties can be more expensive, costing as much as $50 for some brands, Shepherd noted the price may be worth it in order to have something accessible.
“They may be pricey, you may have to buy more than one, however, the great feature of period panties is that you always have it available,” she said. “So even if you have a product that you run out of or is not the correct product that you need, you always have something that’s able to be absorbent to some capacity.”
(NEW YORK) — The United States now leads the globe in confirmed monkeypox cases, new data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has revealed.
The U.S. has reported a total of 3,846 known monkeypox cases as of Monday, July 25, federal and global data shows, surpassing Spain, which has reported 3,100 cases, and Germany, which has 2,352 cases.
“The international community must work together to protect individuals that have been impacted by monkeypox, and those most at risk of contracting the virus,” White House COVID-19 Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said during a press briefing on Tuesday.
“We want to make sure that we all Americans understand that we have taken we are continue to take this virus seriously,” he added.
Last week, the World Health Organization declared the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
Across the globe, nearly 18,100 cases have been confirmed in 75 countries, including more than 17,800 cases confirmed in countries that have not historically reported monkeypox.
Health experts have said that the number of monkeypox cases is likely much higher than the total that is officially reported, and U.S. health officials have been warning for weeks that the number of monkeypox cases would likely increase across the country, as the government increases testing capacity and surveillance.
“I would like you all to understand that we anticipate an increase in cases in the coming weeks,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a press briefing earlier this month.
With increased testing, an improved reporting system for states, and the continued spread of disease, more cases will be identified, she said.
“We know monkeypox symptoms usually start within three weeks of exposure to the virus, so we anticipate we may see an increase in cases throughout the month of July and into August,” Walensky added.
Monkeypox transmission typically occurs through close contact for an extended period of time, or contact with articles of clothing, bedding, or towels that have been in contact with an infectious patient, Dr. Amy Arrington, Medical Director, Special Isolation Unit at Texas Children’s Hospital, told ABC News.
“You cannot get this virus from touching an elevator button, from walking past someone in the mall casually. It is spread by close contact – contact with lesions so touching infectious lesions or infectious scabs,” Arrington said.
Although the vast majority — 99% — of the cases reported domestically have been related to male-to-male sexual contact, according to the WHO, last week, federal officials confirmed that two children in the U.S. had tested positive for monkeypox.
One case has occurred in a toddler, who is a resident of California, and the other has been reported in an infant, who is a non-U.S. resident.
The two cases are unrelated, located in different jurisdictions, and were likely the result of household transmission, officials said.
Officials have repeatedly stressed that although monkeypox is affecting the “gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men,” community most prominently, at this time, the virus can affect anyone who has close contact with people who have monkeypox, including children.
ABC News’ Dr. Rachel Boren contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — There are now at least 3,846 monkeypox cases confirmed in the U.S., according to updated numbers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The virus is firmly on the radar of American health officials after the World Health Organization declared it a global health emergency over the weekend.
Most positive cases have been among men having sex with men, but there are women among the infected, and a few children, as well.
Andy Slavitt, the former senior adviser of the Biden administration’s coronavirus response team, told ABC News’ “START HERE” that he is concerned the outbreak is being dismissed as a “gay disease.”
Slavitt reiterated that monkeypox is spread by skin-to-skin contact and limiting one’s conception of who can get the disease leads to unfair discrimination.
“It would be wrong to assume that we’re going to contain this by telling people to have less sex. I don’t think that’s going to work,” he told “START HERE.”
Jonathan Araujo, of Miami, contracted the virus this month and spoke with “START HERE” Tuesday. Araujo spoke about his symptoms and the stigma he faced when he told his friends and family about his diagnosis.
START HERE: Jonathan, first of all, how are you feeling?
JONATHAN ARAUJO: Right now, I’m way better. I did like a full 360. I was really having a really tough time battling monkeypox in the beginning. It was really like mentally taxing just as much as physically.
There were kind of all just like open wounds at one point. And I had so many of them, you know, I had at least I want to say, at least 30 of them on me at one time. So, it was painful.
START HERE: Can you walk me through what it was like? Like do you know when you got it?
ARAUJO: On July 4, I was working normal. Everything was fine. And I was going out clubbing with my friends, you know, celebrating July Fourth weekend. And I went out to this club, which is where I believe I got it. [There were] the little hairs in the back of my neck just telling me that night something was not right.
The very next day, I got a fever, and then I had the fever for two days. Then I got chills, and then the chills and the third day went away. By the fourth day, I was breaking out on my forehead and on my back really bad. I had all these little pimples. That’s what they looked like to me. They were like very small little pimples at first. The fifth day, which was now July 7 or July 8, I had one on my lip.
START HERE: Like it’s spreading.
ARAUJO: Yeah. I’m not just breaking out. I’m not just sick with a random fever for two days, and now I have chills and I have headaches and body pains. It just didn’t make sense, and I knew something was wrong.
So I went to the clinic and I thought, OK, maybe I have an STD or something’s wrong. And so I went to the clinic, and when I went to go get tested and treated, the doctor immediately looked at me and he was like, “I don’t think you have an STD, I’m not saying you don’t have any, but by looking at you, I think you have monkeypox.” And I was just like, “What? I think monkeypox. I was like, ‘Are you sure?'”
START HERE: Had you heard of it before that? Like, do you know what that was at that point?
ARAUJO: I was very ignorant to the situation. I’m going to be honest with you, I didn’t think much of it. I didn’t think that I would get it, and I didn’t really pay too much [attention] to it .
I knew what it was and [that] it was going around, but I was just like, it will not happen to me. And yeah, boom, it sure did happen to me.
The lesions and the sores, they weren’t huge. They got really big and they progressed rapidly. They turned into these big zits, but you couldn’t pop them, they wouldn’t burst, even if I tried to squeeze them.
They would sting randomly, like they would feel like jolts of pain. They would be dull for the most part, but then out of nowhere I would get a strike in one of them or in some of them, and then they would burn or itch. If I mess with them, or if I touch them, or if I laid the wrong way, it really felt like someone took a match and was setting fire to my skin at some point.
I had some on my elbows, so every time I move my arm it would burn or I would itch. The one I have on my hand currently itches a lot.
START HERE: You have one right now that’s still itching?
ARAUJO: Yeah. It’s on the palm of my hand. So it flexes and it’s constantly like being touched by something.
START HERE: Does the pain continue on for like days, for weeks? Do you feel like you’re sort of past the worst of the symptoms?
ARAUJO: Yeah, I’m definitely past the worst of the symptoms. In the beginning, the pain was, on a one to 10 [scale], it was like at to eight or nine half the time.
After I left the clinic, I went to the emergency room because I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t have a PCP. So I went to emergency room and then I told them, “I think I have monkeypox.” And when they looked at me, they were like in shock that I had monkeypox. Like, they didn’t even know.
START HERE: You’re like the first guy they’ve been dealing with to say this?
ARAUJO: Yeah, they were like, “You think you have monkeypox?” And she pulled out this paper and she was looking at the paper and looking at me. When I looked over like desk to see what she was looking at she was looking at pictures of what monkeypox looked like to see if it matched because she didn’t know. And so they put me into an emergency room I think within maybe 10 minutes. That is the fastest I’ve ever been put into an emergency room ever.
START HERE: And if that’s the reaction from doctors, what’s it like from other people around you?
ARAUJO: A lot of people were very like surprised. They were like, this is real. It was a shock. It was it was like a reality check to a lot of people. Even a lot of people in my family, they were like, “You have what?”
I even had some people would be like, “What is that?” They were like, “I didn’t even know this was a thing.”
I don’t want to segregate groups, but it was predominantly straight people, heterosexuals, that didn’t know what monkeypox was. I hate that it was that way because it was like, you can, anyone can get this.
START HERE: Which is concerning, right, if you’ve got people treating this like an STD passed between people in sexual situations, and it’s not necessarily that.
ARAUJO: No, absolutely not. I didn’t get it from having sex. I got it from going out, and partying and doing normal day-to-day things. I didn’t get it from having sex. I got all my test results back with all my other studies, and I came back negative for everything.
I didn’t have sex for maybe a month or three weeks, almost a month before I got sick. So, I definitely didn’t get it from having sex.
I’m sure it’s possible that you can get it from having sex, but that is not the only way to get it, and that’s where the stigma lies, is that people think it’s just an STD. No, you can get it if you touch one of my sores and then touch your face, it passes just like that because of the infection.
START HERE: Yeah really alarming when you see, not just how quickly it’s spreading, but that it’s spreading kind of faster than people are being educated about it, which is why you’re now shouting from the rooftops. We should note though that [there are] no American deaths from monkeypox yet. Thanks a lot for sharing your experience Jonathan.
(CHARLESTON, W.Va.) — Lawmakers in West Virginia have advanced a new bill severely restricting abortion after a pre-Roe ban was blocked in court.
The bill, passed Monday by the state’s House Health and Human Resources Committee and Tuesday by the House Judiciary Committee, bans abortion at virtually every stage of pregnancy.
There are no exceptions for rape or incest, after an amendment to the bill was voted down by both committees.
However, there are exceptions if the mother’s life is in danger, if the fetus is “non-medically viable” or for an ectopic pregnancy, which is when a fertilized egg implants and grows outside of the uterus.
The bill also explicitly states that miscarriages and stillbirths are not considered an abortion.
What’s more, the bill makes performing abortions a felony punishable by three to 10 years in prison. Women who have abortions will not be criminalized under the bill.
The bill will now go to the House floor and will have a public hearing held on it Wednesday.
The West Virginia Legislature was initially called into a special session Monday to consider Gov. Jim Justice’s proposal to reduce personal income tax rates.
But that morning, as lawmakers were gaveling in, Justice amended the call and said he would also be asking lawmakers “to clarify and modernize the abortion-related laws currently existing as part of the West Virginia Code.”
“From the moment the Supreme Court announced their decision in Dobbs, I said that I would not hesitate to call a Special Session once I heard from our Legislative leaders that they had done their due diligence and were ready to act,” Justice said in a statement. “As I have said many times, I very proudly stand for life, and I believe that every human life is a miracle worth protecting.”
Justice’s office did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Following the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade last month, the state’s sole abortion clinic — Women’s Health Center of West Virginia — said in a statement on Facebook it would not be performing the procedure “until further notice” due to fear of prosecution under an 1882 law on the books.
The law made performing abortions, including administering drugs for medication abortions, a felony punishable by three to 10 years in prison.
However, Kanawha County Circuit Judge Tera Salango issued a preliminary injunction against the ban, meaning the state’s only clinic can perform the procedure again.
In her decision, Salango agreed that the law had effectively been superseded by newer laws, such as a 2015 law allowing abortions up until 20 weeks’ gestation.
(NEW YORK) — It has been over a month since COVID-19 vaccines became available to children as young as six months, but with millions of kids still without a shot, officials continue to face an uphill battle in their push to get the youngest Americans vaccinated.
Since the shots were authorized on June 18, approximately 544,000 children, under the age of 5, have received their first shot, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, representing 2.8% of the 19.5 million U.S. children in that age group.
Preliminary data reported by states shows that several states in the Northeast have the highest share of children under 5 vaccinated with at least one dose, with Washington, D.C. leading the nation with 14.4% of its jurisdiction’s children under 5 vaccinated with their first shot, followed by Vermont, with 10.3%, and Massachusetts, with 7.2%.
Mississippi has the lowest percentage of children under 5 vaccinated, with less than 0.4% of children with their first shot, followed by Alabama and Arkansas, both with 0.6%.
The sluggish start to the vaccine rollout comes as a new KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor survey reveals that many parents remain reluctant to vaccinate their young children. As of July, 43% of parents with children ages 6 months to 4 years old said they will “definitely not” get their child vaccinated against COVID-19. In comparison, when polled in April, 27% of parents had stated they would “definitely not” get their child vaccinated against the virus.
Thirteen percent of parents said they would only inoculate their child, if required, and 27% reported they were waiting to see whether to vaccinate their child.
Only 7% of parents reported they got their child vaccinated right away, while another 10% of parents said that they were still planning to get their child vaccinated “right away.”
When asked about their reluctance to vaccinate their children, parents cited concerns over the “newness” of the vaccine, potential side effects, as well as “not enough testing or research,” and overall worries over safety of the vaccines. A majority of parents also said the information provided by the federal health agencies on vaccines, for children in that age group, was “confusing.”
More than half of parents reported that they feel the vaccine is a bigger risk to their child’s health than contracting COVID-19 itself, while about 1 in 10 parents said they did not think their child needed the vaccine, or stated they were not worried about COVID-19.
Forty-four percent of Black parents of unvaccinated children, ages 6 months through 4 years old, reported that they were concerned they would be required to take time off work to get their child vaccinated, or to care for them should they experience side effects, while 45% Hispanic parents said they were worried about being unable to get their child vaccinated at a trusted location.
However, there are indicators that vaccination rates may pick up, as more parents speak with their child’s pediatrician about the benefits of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Seventy percent of parents with children under 5 who are eligible for the vaccine, and are considering inoculating their child, reported they had not yet spoken to their child’s pediatrician or other health care provider about the vaccine, with 70% also saying they would wait until their child’s regular check-up to discuss getting their child vaccinated.
Among older children, nearly 3 in 10 parents of 12- to 17-year-olds, and about 4 in 10 parents of 5- to 11-year-olds said that they would definitely not get their child vaccinated for COVID-19.
Nationally, about 44 million eligible children remain completely unvaccinated, according to federal data.
The continued call to vaccinate all Americans comes amidst renewed concern over the spread of COVID-19 across the country.
Eighty-seven percent of the U.S. population lives in a county with a high or medium community risk level for COVID-19, as defined by the CDC, indicating that 6 in 10 Americans are currently living in a county where masking is recommended for all people while in indoor public settings.
COVID-19 cases among children remain at a high level, with more than 92,000 additional child COVID-19 cases reported in the last week, according to a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children’s Hospital Association (CHA).
On average, about 300 virus-positive children are admitted to the hospital daily, marking one of the highest daily totals since February.
(NEW YORK) — Cities and counties throughout the United States are considering reinstating mask mandates as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to rise.
In Los Angeles County, 8,091 new infections were reported on Friday, the latest date for which data is available, according to the Department of Public Health. This is an increase of 50% from the 5,391 cases recorded at the beginning of the month.
Experts have said the increase is due to BA.5, a highly contagious offshoot of the omicron variant that is better at evading immunity — at least partially — from both vaccines and previous infections.
It is currently the dominant strain in the U.S., making up 77.9% of all cases, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows. In a region that includes California, Arizona and Nevada, it’s at nearly 80%.
What’s more, the county’s average test positivity rate has remained consistently high, currently sitting at about 16%, said Dr. Barbara Ferrer, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
Currently, the CDC has classified the county as having “high” levels of COVID-19 community transmission. The county must reach a “medium” level by July 28 or an indoor mask mandate will go into effect July 29.
“We are on the cusp of medium and high,” Ferrer said during a media briefing Thursday. “It isn’t going to take much to move us back to medium level if we can get our case numbers to go lower.”
“Should we start seeing a steep decline next week … we are likely to want to take a pause on moving too quickly on indoor masking, universal indoor masking,” she continued.
Ferrer said she understands that “for many this will feel like a step backwards,” but added that mask requirements are one of many “sensible safety precautions” to take when cases jump.
“We are not closing anything down. We are not asking people not to gather with the people they love,” Ferrer said. “We’re asking you to take a sensible step, when there’s this much transmission with a highly transmissible variant, to go ahead and put back on a well-fitting high-filtration mask when you’re indoors around others.”
Meanwhile, in nearby King County — which includes Seattle — officials say they are having “active discussions” about reinstating mask mandates.
In the last seven days, 5,761 cases have been recorded, an 11% decrease from the 6,501 cases recorded in the previous seven days. Hospitalizations recorded in the last seven days have risen 10% from 146 to 161, according to Public Health – Seattle & King County.
The CDC has also placed the county in the “high” transmission category.
During a press briefing earlier this month, Dr. Jeff Duchin, the health officer for the department, said hospitalizations have risen three-fold since April.
“We are actively considering if, and when, additional mandates may be needed,” he said. “And I’m really encouraging everyone now to please, let’s make sure we’ve done all we can on a voluntary basis before we have to go there.”
Oliver Contreras/For The Washington Post via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — In the 30 days since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the abortion landscape in the United States has dramatically changed.
The 5-4 decision was related to a Mississippi law that banned abortions after 15 weeks. Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the majority to uphold the Mississippi law but joined the liberal justices in voting to not overturn Roe.
Because of the ruling, states can essentially establish their own laws. This means depending on where Americans live, people either have unfettered access, limited access or no access at all to abortion.
Many states had so-called trigger laws that immediately banned abortion once Roe was struck down. Others had laws written prior to the court’s decision that they were able to enact after abortion rights were overturned.
A handful of other states have gone the other way and signed executive orders and directives strengthening access to abortion and protecting those who seek or perform the procedure.
Patient care has changed, too. Abortion providers in states where access is still available are seeing more out-of-state patients than ever before, while OBGYNs told ABC News more women are requesting sterilization over concerns their current methods of birth control will fail and they won’t be able to get an abortion.
More states with abortion bans
Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, at least 13 states have ended nearly all abortion services.
Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Texas have completely banned abortion with few restrictions, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Georgia, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee have enforced six-week bans, and Florida has enforced 15-week bans.
This has led to the U.S. being made up of a patchwork of abortion laws.
At least three other states — Kentucky, Louisiana and Utah — have also passed abortion bans, but they have been blocked in court and are awaiting hearings.
Meanwhile, Michigan and West Virginia had pre-Roe bans on the books that were never repealed and went unenforced for years. Judges have issued preliminary injunctions in court against both bans, while Michigan’s governor has vowed to protect rights.
Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, who specializes in the legal history of reproduction, told ABC News that “this is just the beginning” and she believes more states will pass laws banning abortion in the coming months and years.
She said lawmakers wrote several of these abortion laws under the assumption they would not be legally allowed to actually go into effect. Now that Roe is overturned, some states want to make them even more stringent.
For example, in Indiana, the Republican-led Senate has proposed eliminating its current 22-week ban and replacing it with a total ban on abortion with limited exceptions. Additionally, in Missouri, where a total ban already exists, lawmakers want to go a step further and make it illegal to “aid or abet” out-of-state abortions.
“So, since Roe has been overturned, there’s been literally like a cottage industry of abortion opponents producing new model laws and proposals for how to actually enforce an abortion ban, or eliminate exceptions to abortion bans, or enhance punishments for abortion,” Ziegler said.
Some states strengthen abortion protection
While some states have been restricting the right to an abortion since Roe’s reversal, others have been strengthening it.
The governors of Colorado, Maine and North Carolina signed executive orders certifying the right to obtain or perform an abortion.
“A woman’s right to choose is just that — a woman’s, not a politician’s,” Maine Gov. Janet Mills said in a statement at the time of signing.
In Delaware, Gov. John Carney signed legislation allowing licensed physician assistants, certified nurse practitioners and certified nurse-midwives with training to “terminate pregnancy before viability.”
Governors in all four of the above states as well as Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Washington signed executive orders protecting people who seek or provide abortions from criminal or civil investigations or charges.
In North Carolina and Delaware, neither patients nor providers will be penalized for inquiring about abortions as well as providing or receiving abortion care.
The governors of Colorado, Maine, New Mexico and Rhode Island said they will not cooperate with investigations in other states of people who received or performed abortions in their own states.
Additionally, Govs. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts and Tim Walz of Minnesota said they will not cooperate with extradition attempts for those who obtained or provided abortions in their respective states.
Baker’s order also protects providers from losing their licenses due to out-of-state charges relating to abortion.
In Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee signed a directive forbidding the Washington State Patrol from cooperating with investigations related to abortion in states with restricted access.
Earlier this month, President Joe Biden signed an executive order directing federal agencies to take steps to safeguard abortion access including protecting patient privacy, promoting the safety of providers and clinics and strengthening the mandate set by Obamacare that birth control continue to be covered by insurance. Biden has said his power to protect abortion is limited but fellow Democrats and abortions rights advocates have been pressuring the White House to codify abortion rights.
Doctors are seeing more out-of-state patients
Abortion providers in states where the procedure is legal say the makeup of their patients has somewhat changed.
Pro-Choice Washington, a non-profit organization focused on advocacy for reproductive freedom in Washington state, expects a 400% increase in patients seeking care from out of state following Roe’s reversal. One New Mexico clinic said 75% of their patients come from Texas, which has a total abortion ban.
Dr. Lisa Harris, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Michigan, said she has seen more out-of-state patients for abortions than ever before in her almost 30-year career.
Before Roe was overturned, Harris said, typically about three-quarters of her patients seeking abortions were in-state and one-quarter were out-of-state.
“The last day I saw patients, it was 80% out of state and 20% in state,” Harris told ABC News. “It was just like a flip-flop.”
“Most of the patients I took care of last week seeking abortion care came from three different states where they had appointments scheduled on the day the decision was released or shortly after and were unable to get abortion care,” she added.
She continued, “And it took a couple of weeks for them to find and set up care somewhere else, which happened to be Michigan.”
Michigan is one of several states that had an abortion law predating Roe that was never repealed. In Michigan’s case, the 1931 law makes providing an abortion a felony, including in cases of rape and incest. The only exception is if the mother’s life is in danger.
A judge issued a temporary injunction in May blocking the ban as a lawsuit Planned Parenthood filed against the state plays out. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer also filed a lawsuit in April to stop the ban and ask the state’s Supreme Court to recognize abortion as a constitutional right.
Last month, Whitmer filed a motion asking for the court to immediately consider her lawsuit. It’s unclear when a hearing will be held.
The lawsuit has been criticized by groups that oppose abortion rights. Barbara Listing, president of Right to Life of Michigan, referred to the lawsuit as “frivolous” and called on the court to dismiss it.
Harris also said this is the first time she has ever had to tell patients who schedule appointments that she can’t guarantee they will be seen if the injunction is lifted.
“When we meet a patient, we’ve had to say, ‘We will schedule you, but there is a chance that when next week rolls around, abortion will no longer be legal in Michigan and we won’t be able to care for you,’ which causes a great deal of stress, as you can imagine, and people try to make contingency plans,” she said.
Harris is also worried about what qualifies as a life-saving abortion under the save the mother’s life exception if the Michigan ban is upheld.
“In Michigan, our ban permits abortions to preserve the life of the patient, but it’s unclear what the means and does that mean they have to be imminently dying?” she said. “What if the risk was later if they continue in their pregnancy? Does it need to be a 100% chance that they would die? What if it’s 50%?”
She said she thinks it will start to be clear about what qualifies as a life-saving abortion “as doctors begin to be prosecuted.”
Some women are turning to sterilization
Dr. Charisse Loder, a clinical assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Michigan Medicine who specializes in sterilization, told ABC News she has seen an increase in the number of patients coming in requesting sterilization procedures since Roe was overturned.
Before the Supreme Court decision, Loder said she saw one to two patients a week to discuss sterilization. In the weeks since, she has seen anywhere from four to six patients a week.
“Many of them scheduled their appointments after the decision and are actually telling me without prompting that they were prompted to make their appointments based on the news,” she said.
Loder said many of her patients were on other types of birth control, including condoms, pills and IUDs, but wanted to switch to a method with a lower failure rate following the reversal of Roe.
“I’ve had patients say things like, ‘I just can’t take any chances now,’ or, ‘I don’t know what the future holds,'” she said.
She added some patients were also fearful that access to birth control would be lost after reading a concurring opinion written solely by Justice Clarence Thomas in which he called for the reconsideration of Griswold v. Connecticut, which established the right of married couples to use contraception.
On Thursday, the House passed a bill that would protect access to birth control nationwide. The bill passed 228-195 with eight Republicans joining the Democrats.
“So, patients [asking for sterilization] have said, “I don’t know if in the future I’ll need my partner’s permission to use birth control,'” Loder said. “One patient told me, ‘I can’t trust the government to protect me.'”
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(NEW YORK) — Well before the Supreme Court ruled in June to overturn Roe v. Wade, 9% of abortions in the U.S. were obtained by people who had to travel out of state, according to data released Thursday by the Guttmacher Institute, a policy organization that supports abortion rights.
That number — nearly 1 in 10 abortions in the U.S. — is up from 6% in 2011, an increase that occurred at the same time as more states passed abortion restrictions, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Now, with the power to decide abortion access returned to the states by the Supreme Court, abortion rights advocates say the number of women forced to travel for abortion care is already growing.
Amanda Carlson, director of The Cobalt Abortion Fund, which provides financial assistance to people traveling for abortion care, said in the days following the Supreme Court’s decision, the fund helped more than 50 people travel to Colorado for abortion care.
In all of 2021, the fund helped 34 people travel, according to Carlson.
“It has skyrocketed our spending,” Carlson told ABC News of the Supreme Court’s decision, adding that the Colorado-based fund spent $20,000 on support for people seeking abortion care in the first 10 days after the ruling. “We’re seeing numbers that we’ve never seen before.”
The right to abortion is protected in Colorado. In April, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill that codified the right to abortion and declared that a “fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have independent or derivative rights under the laws of the state.”
Earlier this month, Polis signed an executive order that added more protections for abortion providers and individuals who travel to Colorado for abortion care.
The states surrounding Colorado — including Texas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Utah and Arizona — have mostly strengthened their restrictions on abortion access, in some cases implementing near-total bans, in the weeks since the Supreme Court’s June 24 decision.
In Oklahoma alone, one abortion clinic, Trust Women Clinic in Oklahoma City, was seeing around 300 patients per month before Roe v. Wade was overturned, according to clinic director Kailey Voellinger.
In the neighboring state of Kansas, voters will cast their ballots on Aug. 2 to determine the fate of a state constitutional amendment which, if passed, would reverse the right to an abortion in the state. The Kansas Supreme Court previously ruled in 2019 that the state constitution protected a person’s right to an abortion.
If the amendment is approved, further restrictions on abortion access are expected, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Carlson said that, over the last month, The Cobalt Abortion Fund had helped women from as far as Florida and as close as Texas get abortion care in Colorado. The fund, she said, is spending between $1,000 and $2,000 on average in travel assistance per person.
“People are struggling economically and they’re facing not only the cost of abortion care but also very expensive plane tickets, very expensive gas,” she said. “They need flights purchased for them. They need transportation to and from the airport. They may need a hotel while they’re here.”
With so many out-of-state people seeking abortion care in Colorado, wait times for appointments are now as long as one month at some clinics, according to Carlson.
Adrienne Mansanares, CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, told ABC News that her organization purposely placed one of its centers along a Colorado highway knowing that people would travel to the state, given its abortion protections.
“People who were in my position before me 20 years ago were preparing for their worst nightmare, which is this,” said Mansaneres, referring to Roe v. Wade being overturned. “We built a beautiful health center that’s right along the highway [by] Denver International Airport with this idea in mind. If people ever had to fly, patients can come in and out so we can see them in our health center.”
Planned Parenthood’s two other clinics in Colorado are also purposefully located, according to Mansaneres, with one in the northern part of the state accessible to patients from Wyoming, and one in the south more accessible to patients from Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.
“When people don’t want to be forced to have a child, they will go through the means necessary that they have access to,” said Mansares. “So if they have money to hop on a plane, if they have connections and family in another state, they have the information that they need, they’re going to go find it, so we have seen the migration of people coming from these states.”
In New Mexico, a state where abortion access is also protected, demand for abortion care has spiked since the Supreme Court’s decision, according to Joan Lamunyon Sanford, executive director of the New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, a faith-based advocacy group and abortion fund.
“We’re seeing people contact us from all over the country, not just states that are bordering New Mexico, and we’re seeing people in all stages of pregnancy contact us,” Lamunyon Sanford told ABC News. “People are confused about whether it’s safe for them to travel from other states to New Mexico, and at the same time they’re determined to get the care that they need.”
“We’re doing the best we can to meet all of those needs,” she said, adding that the fund is working to hire more people to meet the demand.
Abortion clinics in New Mexico that were overwhelmed prior to Roe’s reversal — due to an influx of patients from Texas, which for the past year had a near total ban on abortions after six weeks — are now experiencing wait times of several weeks, according to Lamunyon Sanford.
“We know that just from Senate Bill 8 in Texas, that our numbers increased between three and four times,” she said. “And our numbers have increased beyond that in the last four weeks.”
In response to abortion restrictions in Texas post-Roe, Whole Woman’s Health, an Austin-based network of abortion clinics, has announced it is closing its four Texas clinics and reopening in New Mexico, where they hope to open a location near the border with Texas as early as August.
“We are hoping that by setting up in New Mexico, we can help the people in Texas who have been displaced,” said Amy Hagstrom Miller, president and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health and Whole Woman’s Health Alliance, which also operates abortion clinics in Minnesota, Virginia, Indiana and Maryland. “We know thousands of people have already been forced out of Texas for abortion since last September, and they were able to go to Louisiana and Arkansas and Oklahoma … and now those states have also banned abortion.”
Hagstrom Miller said that 30% of patients at Whole Woman’s Health’s clinic in Minnesota are from Texas, with abortion now banned both there and in neighboring states.
“That’s a far travel and so we are hoping that opening in New Mexico will help sort of mitigate some of the harms that are going to come across Texas,” she said. “But keeping our sites open in Texas is not sustainable.”
Whole Woman’s Health’s four Texas-based clinics stopped providing abortions the day Roe was overturned, even as patients sat inside the facilities awaiting care, according to Hagstrom Miller. Most of the Texas clinics remain open but are in what Hagstrom Miller called a “wind down phase” of packing up and answering phone calls from people still in need of care.
“The volume of telephone calls coming in is large,” said Hagstrom Miller. “Oftentimes people don’t know about all these restrictions or abortion bans until they find themselves facing an unplanned pregnancy, and they call us and our staff are put into a position of telling them all about what has happened over the last couple of weeks.”
“So we’re still answering the phone trying to support people as much as possible,” she continued, adding that clinic workers are helping callers access care in other states and providing funding for travel when possible. “It’s heartbreaking for us and it’s traumatic for people who are trained to provide a service, and trained to provide that service compassionately, to all of a sudden out of the blue have to look someone in the eye and say, ‘I can no longer provide the abortion that you need.'”
If Whole Woman’s Health is able to open a clinic on the New Mexico-Texas border, it will be an approximately seven-hour drive from the organization’s clinic in Austin and upwards of nine hours from its clinic in McAllen, according to Hagstrom Miller.
In New Mexico though, abortion providers say they at least see a place to land. The state’s leader, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, has vowed that “abortion will continue to be legal, safe, and accessible” as long as she is in charge.
In addition to Whole Woman’s Health, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, is also relocating to New Mexico.
The clinic, which was at the center of the Supreme Court case that led to Roe’s reversal, plans to reopen in Las Cruces, New Mexico, after Mississippi’s so-called trigger law went into effect earlier this month, banning nearly all abortions.
“This is today in this country,” Diane Derzis, owner of the clinic, told ABC News this month. “Mississippi is the past, and the future is moving on to where women have an option.”
ABC News’ Alexandra Svokos and Kyla Guilfoil contributed to this report.
